


Old Habits

by linndechir



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games)
Genre: Hand Jobs, M/M, Praise Kink, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-12 23:26:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18456788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: It takes Adam time to get used to this again - not only to getting touched himself, but also to the idea that Jim might want Adam to touch him in return. That he might not mind the augs as much as Adam had assumed.





	Old Habits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Masu_Trout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/gifts).



“Goddammit, Adam, you should have talked to me! I could have helped. Or at least known where the hell to find you if things go pear-shaped!” 

It wasn’t the first time Jim was yelling at him for his lack of procedure or the fact that Adam’s operational communication was sketchy at best, but it was the first time he was doing it in his apartment rather than his office and the first time they weren’t talking about TF29 operations. Even without the CASIE it would have been obvious how upset Jim was, pacing and gesticulating and most of all _worried_. He stopped right in front of Adam, like he was trying to stare him down.

“I thought you knew you could trust me.” His voice was tight with – with something else underneath the anger and the concern. Adam looked away.

It felt like a lifetime had passed since he’d last worked with someone he genuinely trusted. Someone he knew would have his back no matter what. Looking back he still couldn’t tell when exactly Pritchard had become that person, and now he hadn’t seen him in almost a year either. It was hard to adjust, to the fact that he didn’t have to do this alone anymore. That someone was really on his side, someone he couldn’t simply push out of his life to keep him safe.

“Old habits,” he finally said. It came out more sheepish than he’d intended. He looked up when he heard a brief, dry laugh from Jim. 

“You keep worrying about getting me killed, but at this rate you’ll give me a heart attack before anyone tries to kill me again,” Jim said. It wasn’t funny, but Adam still felt something inside him unknot. He should have known he couldn’t really piss Jim off so much that Jim wouldn’t forgive him, because he’d pissed him off almost from the moment they’d met and somehow they’d still managed to get to this point, but that didn’t change anything about the relief that flooded him. Another old habit, to worry about that sort of thing.

“Come here.” Jim’s voice was as gruff as ever, but Adam was slowly picking up the nuances in that tone, the hint of something gentler underneath. Jim didn’t wait for Adam to move before he raised a hand to his face. That, too, was something to adjust to. It had only been a few short months since London, and only a week since they’d first stumbled into bed (or rather onto the couch at Adam’s place, fumbling and keyed up and it had been over too fast, and _then_ into Adam’s bed to do the same thing again but slower). A week, compared to what now seemed like an eternity of nobody touching him at all except during medical check-ups – and most of those touches hadn’t been on what remained of his skin.

Jim’s hands were warm, and much rougher than Adam was used to from past lovers, and at least when he wasn’t impatient they were incongruously gentle, no matter how gruff Jim sounded or how angry he looked. He ran his knuckles over Adam’s cheek, up to his temple.

“Next time you talk to me before you take off,” Jim said. It was the no bullshit voice he used when he was Director Miller, the kind of military tone that worked on most people and had never worked particularly well on Adam. He half wanted to shrug it off, but instead he simply nodded, a minute movement so he wouldn’t have to shy away from Jim’s hand.

Jim was still looking at him with an intensity that made it tempting to put the shades back up, but he didn’t, simply held still as Jim touched his face. Jim’s thumb brushed over the scar on Adam’s eyebrow, then retraced the socket of his shades before touching the skin right next to it. Soft, thin skin, sensitive this close to his eye, but Adam had never thought it had been _that_ sensitive before. Even the parts of his body that hadn’t been changed beyond recognition felt different these days, overly sensitive to every touch, soaking it up like his body didn’t even remember what closeness felt like.

He let himself be walked back towards the kitchen counter, thought briefly about a few things they might have done on that counter of Jim had stayed angry, but now Jim seemed in no hurry to bend him over anything. His hands were still careful as he got Adam out of his shirt, when he pressed his palm against Adam’s chest. Adam was always … _aware_ of his body in ways he’d rarely been before; no matter how used he got to his augs, how much they felt like a part of him whether he liked them or not, he was still aware of their presence in a way he’d never been of his own body. Having Jim touch him only added to that – his fingers brushing over the typhoon ports and the numb scar tissue around them. His lips on the side of Adam’s neck, actually brushing over the metal before they moved on to his skin, and here Adam felt so sensitive he couldn’t hold back a quiet moan. It shouldn’t have done so much to him, the scratch of stubble on his throat or the warmth of Jim’s body against his chest. It shouldn’t, but then he could feel Jim’s quickened breath against his neck, too, and how hard he was just from touching Adam.

Despite his gentleness there was an urgency in the way he surged against Adam (he’d worried, and it had been a long time since anyone worrying about him had mattered, too). He kept to Adam’s skin for now, hands sliding down his sides, then to his waistband, while he nuzzled Adam’s jaw. As soon as Adam turned his head, Jim kissed him, hungry and almost a little too hard – even before all this, before the smallest touches had made Adam gasp, it would have gone to his head how Jim licked into his mouth, his hand finally on Adam’s cock as if he knew just how desperate Adam was for him.

It was instinct more than anything that made Adam reach out in return, tugging on Jim’s clothes to get them out of the way. He’d never much liked being a tease, not in bed, not when it was so much more fun to make someone feel good, and for a moment he wasn’t thinking, wasn’t thinking at all until his fingers brushed over Jim’s cock and Jim flinched away in surprise. It was only a second, confusion flashing over his face before the realisation hit him, as if he’d forgotten for a moment what Adam was. Should have been impossible, considering just how much of Adam’s body was augmented, but Adam had tried to keep his hands to himself the first times they’d done this – he didn’t like how they felt on his own skin, no wonder Jim didn’t like it any more than he did.

“Sorry,” Adam mumbled, moved closer again to kiss Jim apologetically. “I’ll use my mouth, hm?” 

Simpler that way, and it wasn’t as if Adam didn’t like doing that. If Jim had let him, he would have sunk to his knees right away, if only to get out of having this turn into a _conversation_ , but Jim kept him pressed back against the counter, refused to budge an inch and Adam didn’t want to push. Something gnawed at him, deep and pained and so damn angry that even this had become so much harder to enjoy.

“Wait, Adam, you – not that I’m complaining, mind you, I’d have to be insane, but –” Jim hesitated for a moment, didn’t seem to want to meet Adam’s eyes any more than Adam wanted to meet his. He took Adam’s hand instead, ran his thumb over Adam’s palm – hesitant at first, but then more firmly and lingering. He’d never touched Adam’s augs so deliberately. No one had, not since David and his techs back at SI in the early days, testing if Adam had full mobility and sensitivity in his new limbs. He did. Bio-feedback, one of David’s pet topics, and he’d been damn proud of making sure that, if anything, Adam could feel _more_ now than he’d had before. It never felt quite the same as skin on skin (as goosebumps, and raised hair, and shivering, and the morning sun on bare arms slowly spreading warmth through his body), but right now it felt … good, Jim’s fingers exploring his palm, then slowly caressing his index finger. There was something curious, exploratory in his touch, but he didn’t seem freaked out or turned off. Adam had simply assumed Jim didn’t want to touch his augs, and that had to be why he barely ever did. It hadn’t occurred to him that, maybe, Jim had merely thought Adam didn’t want him to.

Adam felt a tingle in his fingertips when Jim pressed his own against them, artificial nerves simulating something he shouldn’t be able to feel, slightly off and at the same time so much more intense – or maybe it wasn’t, maybe Adam was starting to misremember what it had felt like to have his own body. That tingling sensation followed Jim’s fingers as they slid over his palm again, up to his wrist, callouses catching on the smooth polymer for a second.

“You can touch me, you know?” Jim said after a few more moments of caressing Adam’s hand. He’d been looking down at their hands, too, but now he met Adam’s eyes again. “If these were a dealbreaker, I wouldn’t be doing this, no matter how pretty your face is.”

Adam almost laughed until he realised Jim wasn’t actually joking, and instead felt a very organic heat in his cheeks. Judging by the almost smug look on Jim’s face, he wasn’t doing a very good job hiding it either. 

“And it really is damn pretty,” Jim added, as if to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing, and then he kissed Adam again, did a good job distracting him from anything else that was on his mind while he guided Adam’s hand down to his cock again. Adam could feel a bit of tension in Jim’s body, but he was still hard in Adam’s palm, moaned softly into the kiss and pressed closer against him. Adam had barely even jerked himself off with these hands and he was ever so careful now as he curled his fingers around Jim’s cock. He could feel how soft the skin was, how hot, and he shivered a little when he remembered Jim’s taste on his tongue.

“Doesn’t freak you out?” he asked quietly, lips moving against the stubble on Jim’s cheek. 

“Why, because you keep a blade in your arm?” Jim’s chuckle turned into a gasp when Adam squeezed his cock. “Fuck, I’ve seen you reassemble guns and fix watches with those hands, you probably have better fine motor skills than most people.”

Jim’s right hand was back on Adam’s hip, petting the bared skin where he’d shoved his trousers down, but the other hand was resting on Adam’s forearm now, drawing slow, gentle lines on it. It was almost more distracting than Jim’s right hand sliding closer to his cock – how unfamiliar that touch on his arm was, how _good_ it felt when not accompanied by clinical questions about what he could and couldn’t feel. Touched like a person rather than a lab rat. 

Adam’s mind was so focused on those sensations, of Jim’s fingers on his arm, Jim’s cock heavy and hot in his hand, that he gasped when Jim’s knuckles brushed over his cock. A week hadn’t been enough to get used again to the sensation of actual skin against his cock, of hot fingers wrapping around it and stroking it firmly.

Jim smiled against his lips, and there was nothing mocking about his tone when he said, “You’re so easy. It’s hot, you know that? I just do this –” He rubbed his thumb over the head of Adam’s cock, drawing another moan from him. “– and it makes you tense all over, like you’re about to lose it.”

Jim’s voice was so low that it rumbled through them both, that Adam felt it as much as he heard it. That voice and how damn good it sounded had been one of the first things he’d noticed about Jim, long before he’d seriously considered doing anything about the fact that his new boss at Interpol was really kind of attractive. But usually Jim didn’t say things like that … 

“I just like your hands,” Adam said quietly. He didn’t add how much he missed it, not just having another guy touch his cock, but even just jerking off. He figured Jim had gotten the general idea anyway over the past week. Jim’s cock twitched in his hand when Adam brushed his fingers along the length, then cupped Jim’s balls. He’d never _touched_ them before, not with his hands, just with his tongue, his lips. He watched Jim’s face as his breath stuttered – he didn’t flinch away now, didn’t seem to mind one bit that Adam’s hand felt all wrong. Maybe it didn’t, to Jim. After all he hadn’t known Adam before this.

“Back at you,” Jim replied, a little breathless. “Fuck, that feels good. You were holding out on me, Jensen.”

He kissed him again before Adam could think too much about the embarrassing rush of want those words sparked in him, those words and the fact that Jim was moaning into his mouth and thrusting into his hand impatiently. Adam had never had trouble getting laid, neither with men nor with women, and even since the augs he’d had his fair share of offers, though most of them of the kind that was more interested in the augs than in him. But the last time he’d _felt_ how much someone wanted him, that had been … far, far too long ago, and not worth thinking about when Jim bit his lip lightly, pressing him so tightly against the kitchen counter that the tips of their cocks brushed against each other. Adam reached out with his free hand to grasp Jim’s shoulder, and for once he didn’t pull away, but indulged himself, stroked over the curve of his shoulder, his biceps, retraced the lines of muscles he’d already kissed and nuzzled every chance he got. Felt them twitch and shift under his fingertips as Jim moved his arm, jerking him off nice and slow and just right, just the way Adam had liked it back when he’d still done that himself.

Jim’s kisses had become breathless, open-mouthed, interrupted because he kept talking, and part of Adam regretted that his reaction earlier had been so damn obvious. A small part of him.

“You look good like that,” Jim rumbled against his lips, after glancing down at Adam’s cock in his hand, the sleek black gleam of Adam’s fingers on his own cock, then back up at Adam’s face. “When you’re not hiding behind those shades.”

Adam barely bit back a protesting sound when Jim moved away from his lips, but he didn’t stop kissing him, just kissed his cheek and then Adam’s eyelid, right at the corner where the scarring started. And he kept doing that until Adam put his other hand on Jim’s balls, petting them again while he kept stroking his cock, and now Adam watched him, the way his pupils dilated and his breath caught, the shine of sweat on his brow, the flush of exertion in his cheeks. Jim’s voice sounded almost hoarse, and he’d moved on from whole sentences to gasped fragments, still telling Adam how fucking good he felt, how good Adam made him feel, how much he wanted him … 

It was the first time since they’d started doing this that Adam made Jim come first, groaning against his cheek and fingers tightening around Adam’s cock, but Adam didn’t last long after that either, not the way Jim sounded and moved against him, not the way he kissed Adam again, like he barely had breath for it in his lungs but still wanted to. And there was nothing weird or unfamiliar about that, about that drawn out, blissful, mindless pleasure that numbed everything else when he came over Jim’s hand, adding to the mess Jim had already made of both of them. Didn’t matter. Jim’s shower was fantastic. Big enough for both of them, too.

For a minute or two they just stood there, their kisses softer now, Jim’s hand cupping Adam’s cheek and Adam carefully savouring the feeling of Jim’s come on his fingertips. It still didn’t feel like his hands had used to, but in its own way it felt good. He liked that he sensed even the smallest shudder that went through Jim’s body, the way he muscles twitched when he sighed or moaned or pulled Adam closer. When Jim finally looked at him again, the concern was gone from his eyes, the anger too, and there was just whatever had been underneath it ever since Adam had come back, something Adam didn’t want to think, let alone talk about. Jim smiled, sated and lazy and a bit smug, because he always looked smug after getting Adam off. Adam couldn’t really blame him, not when he felt more or less the same way.

Jim’s hand was warm on his wrist when he took it – and Adam sure as hell didn’t remember his wrists ever being that sensitive before, so either David had gone over the top with the bio-feedback there or Adam was misremembering things again. Maybe his skin had been this sensitive and he simply hadn’t known that he should have savoured it for as long as possible. But it didn’t really matter now, not when Jim’s thumb brushing over his wrist made Adam draw in a sharp breath. And that was before Jim lifted Adam’s arm, then leant in and kissed his fingertips. The stark contrast of white come on the black polymer was distracting, and the pale pink of Jim’s lips when he sucked Adam’s index into his mouth for a moment. Something like a firework went off in Adam’s brain, artificial nerve endings tingling, or maybe that was just a very human reaction to the sight of Jim sucking on his finger. Jim grinned when he let go of it.

“Sorry. You mind?” His expression became more serious again. “If you don’t like me touching them, like that …”

“No, it’s fine.” Adam was surprised himself by how quickly he replied, how little he’d had to think about it. He’d always found the idea of anyone _wanting_ his augs downright repulsive. But Jim didn’t want them, Jim just wanted _him_ , and he didn’t remember Adam without them. Jim couldn’t miss anything Adam wasn’t anymore. 

“It’s fine,” he said again, looked at his hand in Jim’s so he wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “Just haven’t done this with anyone since …”

He couldn’t make himself say it, or maybe just didn’t want to, barely knew why he’d started saying it in the first place. Jim gave him a disbelieving look, like he wasn’t sure if Adam really meant since the augs, and when Adam nodded, Jim breathed out slowly.

“Jesus. Could’ve mentioned that before. No pressure.” His hand was still gentle on Adam’s, but he spared him the worried looks and the pity and the prodding someone else might have put him through. It was one of the reasons Adam liked being around him, had liked it even before he’d entirely trusted him. Jim understood that some things were better not talked about. Maybe not ever. Maybe just not yet.

That same tingle went through Adam’s arm again when Jim’s lips returned to his fingertips, his tongue licking another drop of come off it. The sensation was dizzying, and Adam absolutely wouldn’t have minded getting used to this particular view.

“How about I take you to the shower and we find out what else you like, hm?” Jim asked, his tone reassuringly casual. And Adam was sure it wasn’t because Jim couldn’t tell that a part of Adam was tempted to find some excuse to leave, but precisely because Jim knew that. Adam ran his fingertips over Jim’s lips, savoured the sensation of soft skin and the stubble beside it. He wanted to touch him all over, to let his fingers explore all the places he’d only kissed before because he’d been too damn worried about making Jim change his mind.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. Maybe it was time to break some of his habits.


End file.
